


From the Outside Looking In

by Mendeia



Series: Proximity to Balance [17]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:19:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mendeia/pseuds/Mendeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years after the wars, the people of the Earth Sphere United Nation looked at the peace they had grown from such destruction with relief, sorrow, hope, and pride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Outside Looking In

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, guys. This is the last oneshot for a while. Not the last one ever – promise! But I've finished a Gundam Wing story now and I'd like to start posting those chapters for a bit. Look out next weekend for the first chapter of my foray into Gundam-Wing-Meets-Fairytales. I'll let the exact story be a surprise.
> 
> But when that story has been posted, if I'm still not yet ready for the big, massive crossover, I'll go back to putting up oneshots to keep the updates coming. Only when Epic Massive Crossover Of Doom is finished will I probably let the GW universe rest for a while or else my brain may explode.
> 
> I hope this is an okay place to end things for now. Come back next week for a new adventure in a new land!
> 
> Enjoy!

Two years after the wars, the people of the Earth Sphere United Nation looked at the peace they had grown from such destruction with relief, sorrow, hope, and pride. The road had not been smooth, the work not easy, and yet they had held up their desire for peace over war, had listened to the voices that whispered rather than shouted, and saw before them a future that might not be as tenuous as they had once believed.

Two years after the wars, the people of the Earth Sphere United Nation remembered the five Gundam pilots with a mix of rage and respect. They did not know their names, only their designations, and while many were still angry over their actions, there was no denying that in the end, the Gundams had been agents of peace. It was a peace bought with blood and loss, and the Gundams were still controversial in a way utterly unique to them, but even those who thought on them with bitterness and anger had to admit that the Gundams, for good or ill, had been _magnificent_.

Two years after the wars, those who had known the Gundams personally – people like Relena, Noin, Lady Une, even Zechs – saw not heroes or villains, but victims. They watched the five attempt to navigate a world in which they were true outsiders in every respect. Still so fresh from battle and war and destruction, they saw the scars and pains and burdens carried by those who had killed to spare the unbloodied hands of countless men and women. They respected the Gundams, but they mourned the weights they knew they must carry in secret, known only to themselves.

Two years after the wars, Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei learned to breathe.

Five years after the wars, the people of the Earth Sphere United Nation had made great strides forward in ensuring and enforcing peace throughout mankind. The Mars project had grown by leaps and bounds, and the hope of that new tomorrow and all it might hold fueled the imagination of a whole citizenry, giving them a uniting ideal and goal to drive themselves. The forces that had once divided them did still, and deeply in many cases, but the decision for peace proved stronger than the desire to fracture and the ESUN held the rest together.

Five years after the wars, the people of the Earth Sphere United Nation had little cause to change their opinions of the Gundam pilots, though, with distance and time, they saw more and more that those five signature mobile suits had been just as lost and confused as they themselves. The bitterness faded from public thought as days passed without further fighting, and books and editorials and news stories slowly unveiled a conflict wherein five young men, still nameless, gave themselves completely to the cause of peace and freedom for all people. Those who were determined to hate them still did, but those who could look on the Gundams more gently began to find pity and regret amidst their respect.

Five years after the wars, those who knew the Gundam pilots best saw changes in the young men they had once considered lost. The five kept mainly to themselves in the depths of their hearts, but the bits of themselves they began to show to the world were lighter and kinder than anyone had ever hoped. Where they might have expected silence or a solemn nod or a terse phrase, even the most taciturn of the five might offer a small smile. It seemed that the ice prisons in which they had held themselves, away from everyone and safe in their own worlds, had begun to crack, and only those who had always known what they carried inside were not surprised to find great warmth beneath the impassive exterior.

Five years after the wars, Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei learned to trust.

In the years and decades that would come, the people of the Earth Sphere United Nation would strive forward, upholding peace and prosperity even as they expanded farther into space. The Eve wars would be a mark on their memories, but with time and the wise guidance of their leaders, the people resigned their past to the past and began to embrace their collective future. The Gundams were never forgotten, but they became more like legends than actual mobile suits with teenaged pilots. The people saw them as folk heroes, demigods, children of the stars who illustrated human folly and the pain of war with exquisite clarity before leading mankind to a real choice that they could carry onward. The world had changed, the colonies had changed, and even if history remained the same, it became a blemish and a lesson rather than a seed for destruction.

In the years and decades that would come, the people who knew the Gundam pilots best were not disappointed. Some of the five might be more outspoken than others, or more friendly, or less secretive, but all five had found ways of laughing, ways of crying, ways of creating wholeness where none was before. Their friends did not have any idea how the five could stay together, nearly always side-by-side, when they were at heart such very different and independent and stubborn young men, but they did, and it worked. And the world they inhabited when they were alone remained a secret unto themselves, but their friends could see the difference and knew that, just as the Gundams had become the symbol of the war, their pilots were reflecting the process of peace and progress forward in their own hearts.

In the years and decades that would come, together, Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei would learn to live.


End file.
